Heel and Toe 2016/2017 Number 29
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HEEL AND TOE ONLINE The official organ of the Victorian Race Walking Club 2016/2017 Number 29 18 April 2017 VRWC Preferred Supplier of Shoes, clothes and sporting accessories. Address: RUNNERS WORLD, 598 High Street, East Kew, Victoria (Melways 45 G4) Telephone: 03 9817 3503 Hours: Monday to Friday: 9:30am to 5:30pm Saturday: 9:00am to 3:00pm Website: http://www.runnersworld.com.au Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Runners-World/235649459888840 WHAT'S COMING UP Next weekend is a big one around the traps • The Australian Little Athletics T&F Championships (U13) are to be held in Sydney on 22-23 April. I look forward reporting the results of the U13 1500m walks. • Next weekend also sees the Coburg 24 Hour Carnival in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg. Quite a few of our ultra walkers will be in action and I’ll be there for the weekend. Start lists are available at http://www.coburg24hr.org/24hr/. • The next edition of the World Masters Games kicks off in Auckland, NZ, next Friday. The Games will run from 21-30 April and will feature racewalks in the T&F section of its multisport format. See www.worldmastersgames2017.co.nz. I am sure that some of our Australian walkers will be there. • Next Sunday sees the next of the big international races, with the Naumburg Racewalking Carnival in Germany. Looking further ahead • The first VRWC races at our headquarters at Middle Park are to be held on Saturday 29th April. Races will then be held weekly until mid September. See the fixture at http://www.vrwc.org.au/vrwcw17.shtml. • The Victorian 15km Roadwalk Championship is the first of the Victorian roadwalk championships for the winter and will be held on Sunday 14th May. Entries can now be completed online via the AV website – http://athsvic.org.au/event/av- 15km-walks-championships/. • ACTRWC has now posted the LBG entry form and info sheet on its website at http://www.actwalkers.com.au/lbg- racewalking-carnival-2017-the-tradition-continues/. Remember you give your completed entry to your walking club secretary. All entries must go through your local walking club. Do not send entries directly to the Canberra organizers. FINAL CHANCE TO ORDER YOUR RWV UNIFORM This is your last chance for the year to to order Racewalking Victoria crop tops, bike shorts or hoodies. I have to finalise our order by Thursday 20th April. It's all online – you place your order for hoodies or crop tops or bike shorts at http://vrwc.org.au/wp1/rwv- uniforms/. You don't need to order singlets as we have plenty of them on stock at our clubrooms. 1 THE 50KM RACEWALK IS SAVED (FOR THE MOMENT) The good news is that our world wide campaign to keep the 50km racewalk on the international calendar and the 2020 Olympics has been successful. The online petition (https://www.change.org/p/ioc-iaaf-keep-the-50km-race-walk-in-the-olympics) was an amazing effort, given the one week timeframe. It ensured the issue got huge amounts of sympathetic traction in the world media and, as a result of lobbying at all levels, the IAAF Council voted unanimously last Thursday against recommending any changes to the 2020 Olympic T&F program. This was a huge exercise for the us and many people must be thanked, including our elite walkers (including Chris Erickson who setup the petition), the 9380 people who signed the petition, and the IAAF Council. But special thanks must be made to USA Attorney at Law Paul de Meester who travelled to London off his own bat, booked himself into the same hotel as the IAAF Council delegates and then caught up with and spoke to them all in the final days leading up to the vote. He presented each delegate with a superb summary document (see http://www.vrwc.org.au/documents/IAAF.pdf) and handed out out a post-conference press release (see http://www.vrwc.org.au/documents/De%20Meester%20Press%20Release.pdf) which, taken together, present a well argued and compelling case for the retention of the 50km walk and the need to work towards enhancing the event with a women’s division. I offer no thanks to the IAAF Racewalking Committee who are the ones who got us into this mess. It was with absolute surprise that, post conference, an online article praised RW Committee president Maurizio Damilano for his spirited defence of the 50km, an action that had helped save it (see http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1049218/iaaf-to-keep- 50km-racewalk-on-programme-for-tokyo-2020). I’m sorry – what was that I just wrote? Talk about complete hypocrisy. And others on the committee are now continuing to discuss the other issues like shoes, etc, just like it’s business as usual and all is forgotten and forgiven. Sorry, folks, that is not the case. The RW Committe should hang their heads in shame and should resign enmasse. They no longer have our confidence and support. They have sold out walking. We didn’t vote them in but we should vote them out! Two articles you should read from the many • Quentin Rew has nailed it as usual in his racewalking blog with this review of the IOC and the 50km. See http://morethanracewalking.blogspot.it/2017/04/olympic-hypocrisy.html. • Insidethegames places the 50km discussions in the wider context of the many ridiculous ideas being proposed for the 2020 Games. See http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1049268/liam-morgan-majority-of-tokyo-2020-event-proposals-fail-to- tick-olympic-boxes We have won a major reprieve but not a complete victory. The immediate task remains to grow the women's 50km event so that it can truly stand on its own as a legitimate championship event. For starters, that means we need to lobby our own national federations to schedule women's national 50km racewalking championships. Countries like USA, China, GBR, etc, do this but most don't as yet. Then we need to lobby regional championships and Games to add a women’s 50km, alongside or inside the mens's 50km. You can rest assured that we have won a battle only. The war against racewalking will continue. Marciadalmondo has done a superb analysis in their latest press release (http://www.marciadalmondo.com/eng/dettagli_news.aspx? id=2771) and I will reproduce the table which shows that in the first 4 months of 2017, there have been 12 major 50km walk championships, with a total of 238 men and 25 women starting the races. Venue Nation Men Women Date Porto de Mos POR 4 1 15.01 Schinias, Marathonas GRE 3 - 15.01 Santee USA 12 9 28.01 New Delhi IND 20 - 18.02 El Hierro, Valverde ESP 21 - 04.03 Huangshan CHN 56 9 05.03 Bragança Paulista BRA 6 1 05.03 La Roche-sur-Yon FRA 12 - 12.03 Monterrey MEX 21 - 19.03 Dudince SVK 34 2 25.03 Taicang CHN 21 3 16.04 Wajima JPN 28 - 16.04 Total 238 25 The analysis shows that, while the event is strongly supported on the men’s front, we have work to do to grow the women’s 50km event. Now that the IAAF has ratified a women’s world record, the momentum is building – we must each do our bit to help. 2 NSWRWC ROAD WALKS, CHIPPING NORTON, SYDNEY, SATURDAY 9 APRIL Back a week for the opening round of the NSW Race Walking Club’s winter roadwalking season at Chipping Norton in Sydney. A good turnout with 36 walkers in action. Long Division 8km U16 2km 1. Amanda Barendregt 45.59 1. Emma Thomas 11.17 2. Travis Barendregt 48.00 2. Ellie DeCelis 12.04 3. Anne Weekes 51.24 3. Chloe Krklinski 12.12 4. Brendan Pospischil 12.35 Medium Division 6km 5. Isabelle Nilon 12.48 1. Ryan Thomson 29.57 6. Chia Walters 13.05 2. Jack McGinniskin 32.22 7. Stacie Becroft 14.28 3. Jasmyn McDonald 33.15 8. Emily Challinor 19.06 4. Molly O'Neill 37.40 Kyle Bedford DNF U12 1km 1. Peter Elliott 5.30 Short Division 3km 2. Sienna Pitcher 6.19 1. Hannah Bolton 16.03 3. Thomas Varga-Strike 6.58 2. Renee Hardy 17.01 4. Sarah Challinor 7.19 3. Brittany Robertson 17.42 5. Ella Becroft 7.21 4. Hannah Parker 18.29 6. Amelia Crocker 8.51 5. Brooke Martin 19.08 6. Jada Thomson 19.15 U10 500m 7. Carmel Parker 20.42 1. Dylan Ryan 3.07 8. Chloe McLoughlin 21.39 2. Christopher Nilon 3.12 9. Nicolle Challinor 22.51 10. Nicole Nilon 22.52 11. Antoinette Woodward 24.32 12. Judy Brown 27.19 IAAF RACEWALKING CHALLENGE EVENT, TAICANG, CHINA, SATURDAY 22 APRIL My report on the latest IAAF Racewalking Challenge event in Taicang, China, is taken from Vincent Wu's report for the IAAF (see https://www.iaaf.org/news/report/lu-bonfim-iaaf-race-walk-challenge-taicang). 20km Women The races were staged under sunny and hot conditions with the temperature soaring over 20C after the start of the women’s race at 8:00am. 23-year-old World silver medallist Lu Xiuzhi, who was the fastest woman on paper with a PB of 1:25:12, stayed in the leading pack together with her two teammates Wang Na and Yang Jiayu as well as Brazilian record-holder Erica de Sena for most of the race before charging off for the win some 500 metres before the finish.